Over 50,000 parking tickets were dished out in Cardiff in 2017 – but what street racked up the most fines?

Data journalist Dan Clark has been hard at work digging into the city’s statistics. Today’s scoop: 50k parking tickets in 2017! But which neighbourhood had the most tickets? And which streets should you NEVER park on without paying? Find out right here …

Over 50,000 parking tickets were given out in Cardiff in the first 10 months of 2017, according to a recent FOI (freedom of information) request.

The response covered the period from the 1 January up to the 27 October. With November and December still unknown, it’s likely that the end of year figure will be an increase on the 60,441 parking tickets distributed in 2016.

Roath is the most popular region within Cardiff for offences, with 8,548 in the period studied in 2017. Unsurprisingly, the city centre is also a popular area for tickets, with naughty parkers racking up 6,650 there. Cathays, Cathays Park and Butetown all took a 4,000 ticket hammering, while at the other end of the scale Ely, Morganstown and Thornhill all received just a single parking ticket to date.

Eagle eyes on Museum Avenue

Visitors need to be extra careful when parking on Museum Avenue, as eagle eyed parking inspectors gave out nearly 1,000 tickets on this street alone in 2017. King Edward VII Avenue – the road that runs parallel to Museum Avenue and crosses Alexandra Gardens – is second on the list. Heath Park main car park, Churchill Way and Tredegar Street then complete the top five.

Top 25 most popular Cardiff streets for parking tickets:

Museum Avenue – 945

King Edward VII Avenue – 905

Heath Park Main Car Park – 825

Churchill Way – 787

Tredegar Street – 631

Havannah Street Car Park – 587

Windsor Place – 579

Albany Road – 553

Fitzhamon Embankment – 546

Canal Parade – 512

Gorsedd Gardens Road – 491

Bute Crescent – 488

Bute Street – 478

Plantagenet Street – 467

St Andrew’s Crescent – 464

West Bute Street – 458

Severn Road Car Park – 454

Mount Stuart Square – 431

City Road – 419

Park Street – 412

Cathedral Road – 369

Diana Street – 364

Park Place – 363

Dumballs Road – 362

Womanby Street – 353

If you were looking for a day to risk not buying a ticket, I’d suggest you don’t pick a day in the middle of the week: Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are the most common days for motorists picking up parking tickets. The spread across the year also shows fewer tickets are distributed during the summer. Perhaps it’s because the nice weather encourages people to walk, rather than drive? Or maybe the parking inspectors are forced to walk more in the winter months in an effort to keep warm?

Considering that a parking ticket carries a minimum £35 fine, this is a huge source of income for the council. Even considering that some of these may have been tests, duplicates, or won’t be immediately paid, it still runs into at least a million pounds of revenue.

The following has been paid in parking ticket fines in Cardiff over the last three financial years:

2014/15: £1,896,336

2015/16: £1,917,687

2016/17: £1,272,772

Although 50,000 tickets might have been handed out, it’s unlikely they’ll all be paid. Between April 1 2016 and March 31 2017, just over 20 per cent of all parking tickets were appealed – 12,348 out of 60,622. A high number of these appeals were successful (67 per cent), so recipients were not ordered to pay.

It seems unusual that such a high number were successfully appealed. The council only gives two reasons for the successful appeals: “general” and “CEO error”. It’s unclear what the first category refers to, but the latter means that the civil enforcement officer made a mistake in giving out the ticket in the first place. So if you think you have been wrongfully given a parking offence, it can be worth appealing the fine.